When the dossier says “time unknown”
Most ARK creatures wear a real animal on the outside: a Spinosaurus, a Rex, a Desmodus. A smaller group does not. Their dossiers have no geological period, or give “unknown”, because there is nothing in the fossil record to place them. Three of them appear in Raconin’s videos: the Karkinos, the Rock Elemental and the Boaratos. Each comes from a different place, a myth, a legend and a fan mod, and they are a useful way to see how the game builds creatures when palaeontology runs out. Where the ARK Wiki is silent about a design inspiration, this article says so instead of guessing.
Karkinos: a crab from Greek myth
The name is the clue. Karkinos is the Ancient Greek word for crab, and in Greek myth Karkinos is a giant crab that lived in the lagoon of Lerna. It appears in the second of Heracles’ twelve labours, the fight against the Lernaean Hydra. Hera sent the crab to help the Hydra by attacking Heracles, and Heracles crushed it underfoot. As a reward, Hera placed it in the sky as the constellation Cancer. The oldest surviving reference to the story is the Catasterismi, compiled around the first century BC, with earlier hints in fragments of the poet Panyassis and a mention by Plato in the Euthydemus. The Latin word cancer is a translation of the Greek, and Hippocrates already used it for tumours that looked like a crab.
The ARK Wiki links the creature’s name to that myth but gives no further statement of intent. What the in-game dossier does say, in Helena Walker’s voice, is that Karkinos versatus is a giant relative of modern crabs, time period unknown, omnivorous and aggressive in the wild. It describes long, spindly legs like those of the Japanese spider crab and a hard, stony shell. The real Macrocheira kaempferi, described by Temminck in 1836, does hold the record for the greatest leg span of any known arthropod, up to 3.7 metres claw to claw, with a carapace up to 40 centimetres wide, and weighs up to 19 kilograms. So ARK’s inspiration is a living animal, scaled up with a stony shell. The torn dossier page was revealed on 11 November 2017, and the creature arrived with the Aberration expansion on 12 December 2017 (patch 275.0).
It is built unlike most tames. Per the wiki it cannot be knocked out with darts, arrows or animal torpor; you have to hit its main body with a cannon or catapult, and hitting a limb deals damage rather than torpor. It takes 80 percent less damage from auto turrets, and a Karkinos can carry creatures with a drag weight of 250 or less. Breeding was added to Ascended in patch 52.5, and since June 2025 a cave south of the Green Obelisk on Ragnarok spawns it. Raconin’s video tames it with a trap and a single well-aimed cannonball; he says to hit the head, while the wiki says the main body, so aim at the head and shell and keep away from the claws. Our Karkinos taming guide and metal farming guide follow it.
The Rock Elemental: a golem with no ancestors
The Rock Elemental is the most openly fictional of the three. Its dossier, Colossus petram, states that it has no biological or historical precedent and that its nearest relatives exist only in legend, such as mythical statues like the Golem of Prague. That legend is more recent than people assume. Rabbi Judah Loew ben Bezalel, the Maharal of Prague, lived in the late sixteenth century, but historians regard the story that he made a clay golem to defend the Prague ghetto as an early nineteenth-century German literary invention, with the earliest printed versions in the 1830s. In the story the golem is clay from the banks of the Vltava, animated by a slip of paper bearing the name of God and switched off by removing it.
ARK’s version swaps clay for minerals. The dossier says it absorbs nearby minerals while dormant, which is why its body contains metal ingots, that it is solitary and fiercely territorial, and that once tamed only armour-piercing rounds or explosives hurt it. The ARK Wiki notes that the rocks on its body are armour rather than part of the creature. It arrived in ARK: Survival Evolved with the Scorched Earth expansion on 1 September 2016. In Ascended the wiki’s changelog lists a Scrap Golem added in patch 59.4 and the Ice and Chalk Golems made tamable in patch 73.12, so the family has grown into several variants. Its taming mirrors the Karkinos in reverse: the wiki says to hit the head, because body shots deal damage and no torpor, and that a cannonball to the head delivers about 1,800 torpor. That is the point of the funnel build in the Rock Elemental guide.
Boaratos: the newest, from the mod scene
The Boaratos is the youngest of the group, and its story is about people rather than myth. The ARK Wiki says it was created by DragonHeart, the author of the mod Arkology: Overseer’s Experiments, and that it is an official creature that began as part of that mod and was originally planned for a modded release. It arrived with the Astraeos DLC in patch 93.0 on 27 August 2026. The wiki gives it no dossier and no period, listing it only as an extremely aggressive, omnivorous mammal. It describes a hog-like animal with thick fur, four curved ivory tusks and a fiery mane, and says a burning Boaratos can destroy every structure type, including Tek.
The wiki records no inspiration, and neither do we. Astraeos has a Greek-flavoured name and setting, and Greek mythology is full of boars, but the wiki does not connect the two, so treat that as an observation and not a statement from Studio Wildcard. What the wiki does confirm is a unique kit: a Hog’s Wrath state lasting 33 seconds that adds fire to its attacks, charcoal from bites and tusk strikes against trees, and a fire-resistant fur that insulates its rider. The video title spells the creature “Boratos”, but the in-game and wiki spelling is Boaratos. Raconin’s trick is to hold it in a Karkinos’ claws so it cannot run while you knock it out. See the taming guide and the charcoal guide.
What the three have in common
None of the three is tamed like a standard predator. A body-only cannon shot, a head-only cannon shot and a knockout so fast the torpor melts away: each creature punishes the usual approach. That is a design pattern as much as a lore point. When there is no real animal to borrow behaviour from, the studio gives the creature a rule that rewards players who learn it. The real-world anchors are thin, a crab in a myth, a legend about a clay man and a modder’s pig, but the dossiers are honest about it, and that honesty is what makes them good lore.
See it in the game
Raconin’s Rock Elemental video shows the funnel and the cannon headshot that the dossier’s “no precedent” creature demands.
Frequently asked questions
Video credit. The gameplay video at the end is made by Raconin and shown with his permission. The article itself is ParryStack's own research from the sources listed below. Updated 1 November 2026.
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Sources & fact-check
Facts on this page were checked against these sources on 1 November 2026. Spotted an error? Tell us. See our editorial standards.